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Christ, Creeds, Christians And The Church
John R. Gentry
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men (Matthew 15.8-9).
Simply Christians
When the church of Christ was established on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection as recorded in Acts 2, Luke tells us that Peter commanded the people to “repent and be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins will be forgiven...So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls...And the Lord added to the church day by day those who were being saved.” To which church did God add them? The Lutheran church? The Mormon church? The Catholic church? Was Peter a member of one denomination and John another? Or when Paul was baptized (Acts 9.18; 22.16) did he become Episcopalian? Presbyterian? Or Baptist? Do these questions seem a little silly? They should. Surely no one would claim that those baptized in Acts 2, Peter, John, or Paul were any thing other than simply Christians. In the New Testament, the apostles’ teaching did not make men and women Catholic or Protestant; their teaching produced Christians only. At the church of Christ in Galena we follow the teachings of the apostles as preserved in the Bible. Therefore, we do not claim to be Baptist-Christians, Methodist-Christians, or any other hyphenated kind of Christians. We are simply Christians!
No Creed But The Bible
Another unique quality about the church of Christ in Galena is that we have no creed that separates us into a denomination. We follow the teachings and practices found in the Bible and the Bible only. Peter said, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4.11). Paul said we are “not to go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4.6; cf. 2 John 9). Therefore, we have a Bible passage (book, chapter, and verse) for everything that we teach and for everything that we practice. If you can show us in the Bible where we are not doing something that Christians did in the New Testament, we will immediately begin doing that. If you can show us in the Bible where we are doing something that Christians in the New Testament did not do, we will immediately stop doing that.
You cannot take the Bible and make a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or anything other than simply a Christian. In order to be a Baptist one must adhere to the teachings of men found in the Baptist Manual (or similar Baptist creed). To become a Methodist one must believe and practice what is found in the Methodist Discipline. One is a Catholic who follows the Catholic Catechisms. It is the different creeds written by men that differentiates one denomination from another. We at the church of Christ in Galena, being simply Christians, have no such creed. “We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent.” We “call Bible things by Bible names and do Bible things in Bible ways.”
Our Plea To You
Our prayer and plea to you is that you will desire to be a part of a church that preaches and practices what was preached and practiced in the New Testament and that you will be simply a Christian. If you want to know exactly what the Bible teaches about how to become simply a Christian and not some man-made denominational doctrine that will make you something other than a Christian, please contact us at any time (our contact information is on the back of this bulletin). At a time and place of your earliest convenience, with Bible in hand, we will show you from the Bible how to become a Christian. If you are a member of a denomination, we encourage you to examine the scriptures to determine whether or not the church you are a part of (along with its creed) is mentioned in the Bible. If you cannot find it in the Bible, are you confident that it is the church that Jesus built and the one church of which He is the Savior (cf. Ephesians 1.22-23; 4.4; 5.23)? You too can be simply a Christian and a member of the church built by Jesus. Please, contact us at anytime with any questions you might have. Our sincere desire is for you to go to Heaven.
Galena Guardian
Vol. IX, No. 3, March 2007